My two older sisters (pictured above) are going to learn to drive. This is not a surprise to anyone, but they have picked today to start studying and nine days from now to take the multiple choice quiz that enables you your learner's permit.
About a year or two ago, my oldest sister, Caitlyn, (19) decided she was going to take her test. She studied and took the online practise test and we drove out to the test place and I sat in the car and waited, and she came out and we drove home, learner's permit-less.
The event was unfortunate and slightly disheartening, but we eventually moved on.
When Caitlyn was studying, I was her major partner. I read the driving book cover to cover and started to pay more attention when in the car with my parents.
People may think it's funny, a 13/14 year old reading the driving handbook, but I thought it was fascinating. Driving a car is spellbinding to me.
There are a few reasons for this.
- Cars are large vehicles that are capable of causing quite a bit of damage.
- To drive with other people on the road, you have to put a lot of trust in them to know what they're doing. One person not paying attention can do a lot of damage. You have to have faith in the world.
- Driving requires constant attention and control. You have to multitask constantly and know how to evaluate situations and execute actions.
All in all, it's enough to terrify anyone. I wasn't too worried about the actual rules (stop signs, turn signals, speed limits-unless I was thinking about others not following those rules properly) just of the theory involved.
More about the trust issue (which was a huge revelation to me when I started learning about driving):
When you get behind a wheel and pull out of your driveway and into traffic, you have to blindly believe in the testing/licensing system, and the other road users out there. One person talking on their cellphone or staring at a person on the street with crazy hair and not at you where they should be looking, can change your life completely, forever. It's scary.
What always amazes me is the quantity of people on the road. So many people miraculously pass the rather difficult test and then somehow there they are, driving a car. Maybe it's not that difficult to keep your foot on the gas pedal, while looking for hazards and pedestrians and cyclists and then, oh there's a stop sign, and a kid chasing after a ball in front of you car----aaah there's a bus stopped ahead of you. Break, gas, turn signal, windshield wipers, parallel parking, four way stopping, black ice, school zones, it's enough to make anyone crack from all the stress and run away screaming about how they're never going to get in a car again and use their bicycles for the rest of their lives (not that using a bike is bad--on the contrary I'm a huge fan, go green and all that).
Anyway thanks for reading this slightly pointless, confusing, rant on the epic terror of driving. I hope I have not discouraged anyone from anything, that was not my intent, just be careful, please. Good luck on your test, just relax, and remember: you know this stuff. It's not that hard.
** The picture is here because I was reading a blog that said one of the main parts of fantastic blogging was including pictures I decided to look for some that related to my topic. But I quickly gave up and settled on one I look at the beach the other day. I wonder why no one ever told me about this picture business.
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